Dorothea Buck was born in Germany in 1917
and can therefore be called a contemporary witness. She had
five stays in psychiatric hospitals in the period from 1936
to 1959 and was subjected to various forms of coercion, such
as forced sterilization, cold wet sheet packs and forced injections
and was never granted a single talk about the origin or meaning
of her psychotic episodes. Facing the historical development
of psychiatry and its effects on today’s mental health system,
she challenges biological psychiatry, which rejects communication
with patients, and demands a paradigm shift toward a psychosocial
system based on the wealth of patients’ experiences and provides
alternatives to psychiatry, such as the therapeutic principles
of "Soteria" and Yrjö Alanen’s "Need-adapted
Treatment."